IRC
Today I took part in the IRC (Iron Ring Ceremony), also known as The Ritual Of The Calling Of An Engineer. This is a ceremony that an engineering student can choose to go through shortly before graduating in order to receive his or her iron ring. Yes, that's right; this means I'm typing this post with a shiny new ring on my pinky. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The day started early. Very early. At 2:00am this morning, Chris, Erick, Dave G, Dave Z, Jon, Arick, Huy, Rishi, Kenny and I were still planning our fourth year prank. It was slowly becoming clear how many people knew about these "top-secret" plans. I slept for about an hour and a half, and then a large group of us left for campus at 3:30am. The prank involved suspending a huge tarp (18' x 24') from the fourth floor railing of the Davis Center atrium. The tarp had the letters IRS (Iron Ring Stag) made out of duct tape on one side, and we planned to pour as much water as we could onto the top of the tarp. This would make it interesting to take down. Unfortunately, due to some run-ins with the campus cops, we were forced to change locations to EL where the tarp (now suspended over the fishbowl skylight) was filled with massive amounts of snow. The time was now reaching 7:00am.
At 7:30, while I was getting another hour of sleep, Anna and Dan came over to start on the party preparations. As part of the IRC day celebrations, a group in each class usually holds a champagne breakfast. Well, we decided to do it. I slept till about 8:30, and when I went downstairs I found the living room packed. 32 people had signed up (including the 6 organizers) but a number closer to 45 actually showed up. We ran out of champagne after an hour and I went for a second case (being the only sober person in the working group). The new case of 12 was gone in 22 minutes. In total, we used 29 bottles of champagne in under 2 hours. We went through 5 boxes of pancake mix, some muffins, some OJ, and a pile of plates and cutlery. Luckily the place stayed fairly clean. The worst mess was a chocolate syrup spill on the carpet which we managed to get out during the clean up.
When the breakfast was over around 10:00, the group headed to campus for the traditional walk around. This involves making lots of noise and barging in to random classes, completely interrupting them. The idea is to visit ex-profs of ours, but since we had time, we ended up visiting a lot more than that. We went from MC to EL (RCH to you kids) to E2 to Weef1, to CEIT to MC and finally to Poets, where all the other groups had gathered. Apparently the IRS countdown hit zero around now, but I missed that somehow. I'm hoping to get pictures. For M, the countdown hit 365:00:00:00.
Around 12:30 we headed to Mel's Diner for lunch, which is a 50s diner we've been going to since second year. We completely flooded the place with people. It went from almost empty to having every seat used up, all in a 15 minute span. Needless to say, it took a while to get served, but waffles were delicious.
We got home and Dave and I spent an hour cleaning up. Jon had started that morning. We counted the money and found we'd made $80 profit, with $40 going to Anna for doing all the shopping. It wasn't about the money though. It was about hosing the most successful Elec 2005 event in 5 years!
I got another hour of sleep and then woke up, showered, and changed to formal clothes for the ceremony. The ceremony was wired. There were religious passages read and oaths were sworn. A few speeches were made. A chain was held. I'm not supposed to be revealing this, according to them. Finally, we got our rings. Mine actually got stuck at my knuckle and the guy putting it on didn't want to push. It really is the right size though, and I'm keeping it.
We went to McGinnis Frontrow for dinner where service was, once again, very slow due to volume. We actually bought pizza at Ginos while waiting for our waitress to take our orders and were done eating (the slices) before she did. After chilling at the bar for a while, we all headed home. Most people got ready for IRS, which is a party at Fed Hall where everything that isn't black gets ripped off you. I thought that sounded lame so I didn't buy a ticket, and still have no regrets.
Whew! This has been a long, long day.
Pictures:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=sudslpr.102u2x8b&x=0&y=-cvo3l3
The day started early. Very early. At 2:00am this morning, Chris, Erick, Dave G, Dave Z, Jon, Arick, Huy, Rishi, Kenny and I were still planning our fourth year prank. It was slowly becoming clear how many people knew about these "top-secret" plans. I slept for about an hour and a half, and then a large group of us left for campus at 3:30am. The prank involved suspending a huge tarp (18' x 24') from the fourth floor railing of the Davis Center atrium. The tarp had the letters IRS (Iron Ring Stag) made out of duct tape on one side, and we planned to pour as much water as we could onto the top of the tarp. This would make it interesting to take down. Unfortunately, due to some run-ins with the campus cops, we were forced to change locations to EL where the tarp (now suspended over the fishbowl skylight) was filled with massive amounts of snow. The time was now reaching 7:00am.
At 7:30, while I was getting another hour of sleep, Anna and Dan came over to start on the party preparations. As part of the IRC day celebrations, a group in each class usually holds a champagne breakfast. Well, we decided to do it. I slept till about 8:30, and when I went downstairs I found the living room packed. 32 people had signed up (including the 6 organizers) but a number closer to 45 actually showed up. We ran out of champagne after an hour and I went for a second case (being the only sober person in the working group). The new case of 12 was gone in 22 minutes. In total, we used 29 bottles of champagne in under 2 hours. We went through 5 boxes of pancake mix, some muffins, some OJ, and a pile of plates and cutlery. Luckily the place stayed fairly clean. The worst mess was a chocolate syrup spill on the carpet which we managed to get out during the clean up.
When the breakfast was over around 10:00, the group headed to campus for the traditional walk around. This involves making lots of noise and barging in to random classes, completely interrupting them. The idea is to visit ex-profs of ours, but since we had time, we ended up visiting a lot more than that. We went from MC to EL (RCH to you kids) to E2 to Weef1, to CEIT to MC and finally to Poets, where all the other groups had gathered. Apparently the IRS countdown hit zero around now, but I missed that somehow. I'm hoping to get pictures. For M, the countdown hit 365:00:00:00.
Around 12:30 we headed to Mel's Diner for lunch, which is a 50s diner we've been going to since second year. We completely flooded the place with people. It went from almost empty to having every seat used up, all in a 15 minute span. Needless to say, it took a while to get served, but waffles were delicious.
We got home and Dave and I spent an hour cleaning up. Jon had started that morning. We counted the money and found we'd made $80 profit, with $40 going to Anna for doing all the shopping. It wasn't about the money though. It was about hosing the most successful Elec 2005 event in 5 years!
I got another hour of sleep and then woke up, showered, and changed to formal clothes for the ceremony. The ceremony was wired. There were religious passages read and oaths were sworn. A few speeches were made. A chain was held. I'm not supposed to be revealing this, according to them. Finally, we got our rings. Mine actually got stuck at my knuckle and the guy putting it on didn't want to push. It really is the right size though, and I'm keeping it.
We went to McGinnis Frontrow for dinner where service was, once again, very slow due to volume. We actually bought pizza at Ginos while waiting for our waitress to take our orders and were done eating (the slices) before she did. After chilling at the bar for a while, we all headed home. Most people got ready for IRS, which is a party at Fed Hall where everything that isn't black gets ripped off you. I thought that sounded lame so I didn't buy a ticket, and still have no regrets.
Whew! This has been a long, long day.
Pictures:
http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=sudslpr.102u2x8b&x=0&y=-cvo3l3